Orphée

Orphée is a 1950 French fantasy film directed by Jean Cocteau. It is the second installment of Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, preceded by The Blood of a Poet (1930) and followed by Orpheus' Testament (1960). The film stars Jean Marais as Orphée, a celebrated poet who becomes entangled with the supernatural.

The plot follows Orphée as he becomes obsessed with a mysterious princess and the enigmatic machinations of his own mirror, which serves as a portal to the underworld. His young wife, Eurydice, portrayed by Marie Déa, struggles with his increasingly distant and otherworldly behavior. The film explores themes of art, love, death, and the relationship between the mortal and the divine, drawing heavily from the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Cocteau's distinctive visual style is prominent throughout Orphée, employing innovative cinematic techniques and dreamlike imagery to depict Orphée's journey. The film's iconic sequences, such as Orphée's passage through the mirror and his encounters with Death, have become enduring examples of surrealist cinema. Orphée was critically acclaimed for its artistic vision and has remained influential in discussions of experimental filmmaking and mythological adaptation.